Stories From The Old Attic | Page 5

a meeting of the principal scientists and
educators of the region, who had gathered to hear of his travels.
Someone mentioned that the west had much to offer, but that the
journey between the two areas was unpleasant, consisting of crossing a
hot, empty desert. "In that case," said the traveler, "I'll just fly."
"Is that like sleep?" one of the scientists asked.
"No, no," the traveler replied. "You know, fly through the air, like a

bird."
"And what is a bird?" someone asked. And so the traveler began to
explain about flight and what an airplane was and how it flew from one
place to another. The room became very quiet, and the expressions on
the faces of everyone present darkened.
"Does he expect us to believe this?" one man whispered to another.
"Well, you know what liars travelers are," someone else added. Finally
the host spoke up, slightly embarrassed and slightly indignant.
"If this is your idea of a joke," he began, but was interrupted by the
surprised traveler.
"Why, it's no joke at all. People fly all the time."
"I am sorry that you so much underestimate the intelligence and
learning of your audience," said a professor across the table. "That a
person could enter some metal device--like a car with fins--and rise into
the air, and be sustained there, and move forward, why that clearly
violates everything we know about the law of gravity and the laws of
physics. If we have learned anything from a thousand years of study of
the natural world, it is that an object heavier than air must return
immediately to earth when it is tossed into the sky."
"Hear, hear," two or three people muttered.
"Now, if you perhaps mean that these 'airplanes,' as you call them, are
somehow flung into the air for a short distance and then fall to the
ground, well, then perhaps that would be possible." The professor
looked expectantly and a bit condescendingly at the traveler, hoping
that the man would take this face-saving opportunity.
"No, no. You don't understand," said the traveler. "The airplanes have
powerful motors and the craft rise into the air, and they stay up as long
as they want, as long as the fuel holds out." There were several audible
"hmmphs" around the room.

"Tell us then," said another scholar, in a saccharine voice, "how this
device works. What makes it fly?"
"Well, I don't know exactly how it works. It has something to do with
air flowing over the wings."
"You don't know--you cannot explain--how it works, this device that
runs counter to everything we know about the natural world, yet you
believe in it anyway."
"Believe in it?" asked the traveler, a bit confused by this turn of phrase.
"Of course I 'believe in it.' I fly on one all the time at home."
"And how do you control its motions?" a man asked, without removing
his pipe. The audience was clearly beginning to patronize the traveler,
and he was growing a little irritated.
"Oh, I don't control it. There's a pilot for that."
"I see," the pipe smoker said. "So this airplane contains both you and
the pilot. You're telling us that perhaps four or five hundred pounds of
dead weight can travel through the air as long as it wants."
"As long as the fuel holds out," added one of the hmmphers, with
amusement.
"And all the time sneering at the law of gravity and laughing science in
the face," someone else noted.
"Well, actually, the planes are much larger than that," said the traveler.
"Many of them hold two or three hundred people and weigh, my, I
don't know--many thousands of pounds."
"I think we have heard enough," the now-fully-embarrassed and
half-angered host said. "It was amusing for awhile, but it's time to put
an end to this nonsense."
"It is not nonsense," the traveler protested. "It is the truth."

"Then you really believe this madman's drivel you've been feeding us?"
the host asked, rather hotly.
"Of course. How can I not believe it? I see it and live it every day. And
here," he added, remembering something, "I even have a photograph."
"Obviously faked," said the host, dismissing it after a glance.
"Who invited this charlatan?" someone asked of no one in particular.
"I thought science had put an end to all this miraculous event stuff long
ago," said another man, rising from his chair and preparing to leave.
"Well, let's not pursue this pointless discussion," the host said. "Our
guest apparently knows nothing of science, and is impervious to logic
and to the considered opinion of the best minds of our nation. There's
nothing left to do but adjourn." The meeting began to break up, and the
traveler was putting on his coat when the man